A few comments about the Romulan - Page 2

PsychoTechFreak · #11 May 28th, 2001, 11:26 PM

quote:
Originally posted by God Emperor:
... putting lots of shields or security stations sucks up space that could be used for weapons (see Master Belisarius's early comment on firepower)...

Yes, but all the firepower is useless, if the ship does not get the chance to fire: optimal boarding strategy (human): waiting one field beyond weapon range+movement points and maybe one shot from the shield depleters, next turn brings the boarding ship next to the defender, eventually the next shield depleter brings down the rest of the shield and the ship is mine before it could discharge its guns.

I don't use security stations as well, the boarding party is enough to defend against eventual boarding attacks with the possibility to board another ship. But I see, the AI needs much to learn... (But I think it just can be improved if we don't ignore the human strategies to help the AI, better would it be if the AI could be tweaked to counter these strategies... In another thread someone has suggested an open source AI, oh that would be the nicest present from MM since SEIV has been released !)

God Emperor · #12 May 29th, 2001, 12:44 AM

PsychTechFreak,
What do you see as the best defence then that us modders could design into AI ships - boarding parties? Must admit, I'm not entorely sure what approach to take....
Regards,
GE

Master Belisarius · #13 May 29th, 2001, 01:37 AM

In my view, to use boarding parties, Alliegace Converters, Mines, Stellar Manipulations and Plagues, are only a way to to have an easy game against the AI.
This is not a cheat, but not fair with the AI. Why? Because the AI is in a great disadvantage using these techs.

Q · #14 May 29th, 2001, 06:45 AM

Master Belisarius I humbly disagree. Even if the AI does not use them as efficiently as an experienced human player, I think the performance with mines, allegiance subverter is quite good at least with some modified races.
If you let the AI research medicine and include a medical bay in the population transport ship design, he will cure plagues quite well.
Boarding parties IMO are not very interesting even for human players. They can be rendered ineffective be the self destructing device and even if successful you usually board a severely damaged ship!
Steller manipulation especially warp point manipulation I agree with you. But even there I saw sometimes the AI use star destruction and planet creation in a reasonable way.

[This message has been edited by Q (edited 29 May 2001).]

PsychoTechFreak · #15 May 29th, 2001, 08:20 AM

quote:
Originally posted by God Emperor:
PsychTechFreak,
What do you see as the best defence then that us modders could design into AI ships - boarding parties? Must admit, I'm not entorely sure what approach to take....
Regards,
GE

Sorry, most of my comment was generally about the AI. I think if you could add SDDs (which is just 10k), I would be glad for now.

Q has made the point about this:

"They [boarding parties] can be rendered ineffective be the self destructing device and even if successful you usually board a severely damaged ship!"

And I wish to say: Thank you very much for your efforts in modding, sire.

[This message has been edited by PsychoTechFreak (edited 29 May 2001).]

God Emperor · #16 May 29th, 2001, 11:17 AM

SDD's it is then!
Thanks for all of your comments.....

dogscoff · #17 May 29th, 2001, 12:05 PM

A few handy hints for defending against boarding parties:

Instead of security stations, fit an extra crew quarters component. It provides some defence against boarding, takes up less space (I think) and has the added advantage of backing up your primary crew quarters, which costs you movmnt points if destroyed.

Shield regenerators mak it harder for your opponent's boarding ship to catch you with zero shield points.

------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

Master Belisarius · #18 May 29th, 2001, 04:01 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Q:
Even if the AI does not use them as efficiently as an experienced human player, I think the performance with mines

- About the mines, please note that to include minesweepers into your attack ships (like your AI moded races and the Rage, for example), it makes the ship more weak.
Also, in the early game, the minesweepers in attack ships are not very effective: for example, the Phong attack ships were unable to remove the Pyrochette minefields.
The REAL problem is that the AI doesn't include the minesweepers ships into their fleets, and send those ships unprotected to remove the mines.

quote:
Originally posted by Q:

allegiance subverter is quite good at least with some modified races.

- Yes, the AI use the Allegiance Subverter very well. But if an human player found an AI with this device... the next turn will start to research computers to build ships with Master Computers.
But, I'm saying that Allegiance Subverters used by human players against the AI, are like a cheat, because the AI NEVER use Master Computers.

If an human player found other player that use boarding parties, surely he'll start to include Self destruct devices into their ships. But what happen with the AI? The AI doesn't know if their enemy is using boarding parties or not... then, the AI maker will be forced to spend some important space of their ships with useless Self-Destruct Devices (useless if the other empire is not using Boarding Parties).
I think that here, should exist an automated event, that should be triggered when the AI knows some enemy designes with Boarding Parties (the Self-Destruct Devices only should be included into the AI designes, if the AI knows that his enemy is using Boarding Parties) .

quote:
Originally posted by Q:

If you let the AI research medicine and include a medical bay in the population transport ship design, he will cure plagues quite well.

- What happen when an human player got a plague into of one of their colonies? He will try to research the Medicine devices to cure the plague.
But the AI... the AI only will follow what did their creator.
It mean that if he have included the research to cure the plagues in the early game, probably the AI will lose a lot of valuable resources, researching an useless tech. But if the human player research the plagues in the early game, but the AI maker put this tech later into the AI tech tree, then, well... the AI will die.
Like the Self destruct and Master Computers, the research for cures to plagues, should be an automatic event, triggered after the AI knows that one of their planets have a plague.

Finally, about the stellar manipulations, yes, the AI use it, but in an erratic way. (The AI can send a sun-destroyer to kill a system with only one little planet of their enemy, instead to kill other enemy's system with 10 starting planets!).
Also, what about the old human tactic: to open a warp point, send a fleet into the enemy territory and close the warp point? The AI is unable to do it.
It mean that the AI have a great disadvantage, using Stellar Manipulations.

Nitram Draw · #19 May 29th, 2001, 04:17 PM

I don't think it will ever be possible to get the AI to use all the available tech/weapon combos effectively. As you point out they are only as good as their creator made them. The AI, in its current state, can never learn. This is really what must be changed to make the AI much better. The game is so complex and there are so many variables that it is impossible to program the AI to take advantage of them all.
So far most of the good modded AI's have made compromises and are worthy opponents in the short term. The longer the game goes the easier they get to beat.
Some of the mods have added the minesweeper ability to an item that also has other uses, Dev mod gives this ability to PD cannons. This is a good compromise I think. While a human will always build dedicated minesweepers and include them in the fleet the AI just won't.
Plagues are another area the AI is weak in, if it's not in the program they will just die. The medical ability could be given to something the AI will definately produce.
The only problem with the compromise approach is it dilutes the thing that makes this game great, the variety. Maybe MM will take everything learned/suggested in this forum and use it in SE5 to make the game that this one could be. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this game. I just hope the next Version has a big improvement in the AI.

Atraikius · #20 May 29th, 2001, 04:20 PM

From all of the Star Trek TV series, years of Star Fleet Battles, and various Star Trek computer games, it seems as though there are three things that define the Romulans:
1. Cloaking Device
2. Plasma Torpedoes
3. Very extensive Intelligence force.

yet, the Romulan AI seems to research both Cloaking, and Intelligence fairly late, when they should be one of the first, and when they finally do research Intelligence, they don't seem to build very many Intelligence Facilities, putting them a noticable disadvantage when using Intelligence projects against them, when they should rival the Darloks.

While Plasma Torpedoes, a weapon used by them since thier very first apperance in the original series, are not even used.